Rumors, Humor and Realities Following COVID-19 Outbreaks: Pandemics and Public Trepidation
Rumors, Humor and Realities Following COVID-19 Outbreaks: Pandemics and Public Trepidation
Corona virus is now a crisis everywhere in the world causing thousands of human deaths and sufferings for millions of people. Centering this crisis, there are huge rumors, humors in the social media. The doctors, scholars and media people have been suggesting a number of advices on its realities. Experts have also been putting suggestions regarding to avoid, escape and even suggesting medicines to healing from this. The articles will deal with the facts those mainly from happened in Bangladesh.
COVID-19 body structure
Like many people of the corona victim countries, we in Bangladesh are also lock-downed since Mid March, remaining at home. Our time is passing mostly on Facebook (FB), watching TV and talking to the friends, although lock-down has been with drown in many countries after getting improvement in the corona situation. In Bangladesh, despite the continuation of ‘stay at home’ imposition, vehicles and conscious people are getting out on seasonable causes. It also seemed that some people in Bangladesh do not care corona and try to lead their lives as it was before. It was my thinking that I could share my feelings, frustrations, agony and panics with people who are also on ‘Stay @ home’ like me.
In this writing, the raw materials I collected, mostly from the Facebook and mass media; and also some from newspapers and televisions. I just compiled those and posted only, nothing I contributed in-depth for the scientists and scholars. I have also posted some pictures which mainly I collected from Facebook, some of them do not have credentials.
I express my humble gratitude and acknowledge to those whom I depended on to write this article.
My experience of having pandemic in my boyhood
Before exchanging our feelings, let me share with you some the social situations while epidemic disease spread during our boyhood (or childhood). I remember one incidence of spreading Cholera that mainly spread through water, more precisely through drinking water. During that time, we did not have tube well and had to drink pond-water or bill-water. Well, those we used to drink after having cleaned (mud or silt particles) adding alum or ‘Fitkiri’. It would be a privilege to introduce my birth place which is in the village of MohishKhali (island of bufellows), Thana - Lalmohan, Sub-Division - Bhola, District - Barisal, country - Bangladesh. It is the largest island (Bhola, now district) of Bangladesh having only the river ways of transportation to get in other districts despite having improved road ways inside.
Bangladesh map showing the island district 'Bhola' of Bangladesh
Our village pond
Alum used to purify drinking water
Cholera broke out in our village, in as far as I can remember, would be 1962 or 1963 (during our East Pakistan era). People died massively due to the extensive spread of cholera. In that situation, the leader of the community home (consisted of several houses each with a single family) used to fly ‘red flag’ using a long bamboo pole tying with the top branch of the tallest tree of his home. The objective of flying the red flag was to forbid the out-coming people not to enter the community home. It may be noted here that radio was not available in our village, the terminology ‘Television’ was not familiar to our village people.
Picture of one Bangladeshi village from Facebook, Credit: Abdul Azim
Our village road, beside - a canal is flowing, its in the coastal ecosystem
Our village house
The situation was very terrible to us during that days. Our father/guardians used to keep us confined in the house (locked down of that time). During that times, our guardians’ conception was that, if we get out, we may be caught by bad air (hot air) and may be caught by cholera. The cholera was thought of as an ‘individual’ having a physical invisible structure like ‘Satan’ or ghoast at that time. Our guardians used to advise us not to call anybody in loud by his/her name, and if we do that the Satan will follow us. A priest was appointed to keep away the ‘cholera satan’ from our community house. He used to recite verses from Holy Quran while rounding the house at night.
The medical facilities available during our boyhood
In those days, the medical facility was very scarce. In Thanas (the lowermost administrative unit of the country, now it is ‘Upazilla’), no hospital or no MBBS doctors were available. In some areas the conscious educated people used to have consultation with the LMF doctors who were also hardly available in all Thanas. Only the patients had to call ‘quack doctor’ (village doctor) having very shallow knowledge about the medication. Well, I do not remember if Cholera Saline was available at that time in our locality. It is well known to all that the cholera kills the patients through dehydration in the body of the patients resulting from massive vomiting and discharge of faeces from the bowels frequently in liquid form.
Now let us have the corona stories in our ‘stay at home’ prison. Our gossip will be on ‘point by point’ that is, section-wise. Please feel free if you like to contribute with those of mine in the comment box.
In the previous section, I mentioned the about the superstitions associated with the epidemic occurrence in different decades or centuries in our country. However, with the advancement of scientific innovations and due to rising consciousness, people were also concerned so that epidemic disease, if any, its outbreak may be slowed down.
During my youth hood in some cholera outbreaks, peoples used to drink tube well water instead of drinking pond-water, as, in the meantime tube wells were sunk in some of our localities. But still there were some erratic concepts prevailed at that time, such as ‘wash your plate with pond-water, not with the tube well water’ as it has to be collected from far away. But in some cases, the conception was very clear. As far I remember, chicken fox appeared in my youthhood, peoples used to mosquito curtain around the patient so that flies cannot spread around.
A tube well in one of our villages
The source where the corona virus spread from
It would be wise to write the realities first so as to find the cause of those posts or publicity in the FB and the mass media. It may be said that the Corona unveiled its face in China since Mid-December of 2019 although its infection was actually initiated some days ahead.
Well, the illness due to corona infection was first felt in Dec 10 in China. It was first unveiled by a Chinese physician Dr. Ai Fen of Wuhan Central Hospital to her colleagues, but no body took the case as serious as it should have been taken. It was published in different mass media that, that ‘disclosure act’ was not chosen by the Chinese authority, instead, she has been detained for taking the ‘disclosure’ as one of the propagandas.
Experts say, if the Chinese government had attended this virus with care at its initial stage, the virus would not have outbroken so drastically and the death toll of the China could have been 5% in comparison to the exact death statistics of the present time.
There are two possible causes of origin of this virus; one suspect is that bats translocated this virus in to human body. It was reported that the first identified infected man used to serve in a wildlife market where the wild lives were sold for the consumers who used to eat those. Chinese eat varying types of wild lives such as snakes, caterpillars, rabbits, bats, cats, dogs, and some other wild animals which, most of other nations are not used to. Second suspect is that the Chinese generated this virus in their laboratories to use this virus as ‘Germ weapon’. There is huge controversy on these two causes; if the first one is true, the second one a reumour, and conversely, if the second one is true, the first one is the reumour.
Showing one wild animal shop of wild markets in China
Picture of a bat which is suspect to be responsible to carry COVID-19 in China
The first infected’ patient got admitted in the Wuhan Central Hospital and was given proper drugs, but on December 16, doctors came to know that the virus in his body was resistant to flue drugs which were normally used in the cases of other flue related diseases.
On Dec 30, Li Wenliang, a doctor of that hospital suspected it to be one like SARs virus. On the next day, 26 more people, who were associated to that market’s business activities, have also been feeling illness and consequently the market was closed. On January 09, China declared that they have been able to invent the genomic ‘map’ of the virus causing the pandemic disease and on January 14, the country announced that they found no evidence of transmitting this virus from human to human.
The whistle blower for corona Dr. Li Wenliang of China
But, the virus spread massively in Wuhan along with spreading in three other adjacent cities within January 23rd. The authority then declared the cities ‘lock downed’. Within January 30, the virus spread throughout the country after the massive observance of China’s ‘Lunar New Year’ Holiday - hunting thousands of Chines lives.
Lunar New Year’ in China, photo credit: Xinhua
Those corona victims became primary hosts or vectors and those spread the virus from one province to another province in China through the travelling persons.
Scientists say that the corona infected persons may show corona symptoms in two to fourteen days. The people having been in contact with the infected people, even before its expression, may also be infected. That is, the disease is infectious. In Wuhan, the virus caused death of huge human lives. Gradually it spread in the adjacent countries like Singapore, Indonesia, Japan and Malaysia. Form Asia, it then travelled to Europe and has been a havoc or significantly a ‘threat’ in Italy, Iran, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany. It then travelled to some Mediterranean, Middle East and South Asian countries like Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It spread seriously in the USA and took more than 90 thousand human lives. Up to this date, it infected more than five million of people taking human lives of near about 316 thousands human lives as on May 18 of 2020.
World Corona spread map up to March 13, 2020, photo credit: METROco.uk
What happened in the local markets after the corona was evident in Bangladesh
Well, in the previous section, I have attracted you to one food habit of Chinese saying that ‘Chinese people eat varying types of wild lives such as snakes, caterpillars, rabbits, bats, cats, dogs, and some other wild animals which, most of other nations are not used to’. I did not say it upon disliking their food choice, its of their own choice. The point arose as there was one well circulated rumor that eating bats caused the virus entering in to human body and made those humans as coronas hosts or vectors.
We, the subcontinent people, are not above the criticism of having some bad food habit. One is chewing vine’s leaf (betel leaves) for whole the day - coloring our mouth and teeth. When I went to the Loughborough Campus of the ‘University of Nottingham (UK)’ to study my 2nd MSc in Agronomy, my Course Director appointed an African senior student (Agronomy) to show me the market place, bus stoppages and some other important places where I can buy things from – as I was a new comer in that place. The senior student helped me taking me to many places around the campus and markets nearby. Once upon a time, he asked me, ‘you people use to chew betel leaves, what about you? I told – yes, its our habit, we take it as a stimulatory item, but I am not habituated to it.
Let us now come to the point when corona hit Bangladesh giving sign in some returnee’s body (from abroad) who were mainly from our huge remittance earners from some foreign countries. At the initial stage when the corona crisis was badly felt causing panic in Bangladesh, some people were busy to hoarding the food commodities in their houses thinking that those commodities will be in a great deficit in the local markets soon. Such suspicious thoughts arose in their mind because of their recent knowledge gained from the our local televisions. When corona spread initially in some countries, some health-related products ran out rapidly from the super shops of those countries due to the mass purchases by the consumers. Those customers thought of that the corona may stay for a long time and those products will be needed in much amount in their family. In a super shop of a certain country, two customers were seen even quarreling each other centering to buy a bundle of toilet paper - as only that bundle was left in that specific super market, others were sold before in a moment.
Mass purchase of vegetables/grocers after covid-19 in Bangladesh and elsewhere
Hand washing with sanitizers for 20 seconds was the main advice from doctors to get rid of COVID-19 germs
In Bangladesh, due to this mass scale buying, the price of some commodities rose to the pick. In the social media, some posts instigated the consumers too for doing so. In the social media, there were many posts advising people in advance of corona infection saying that some food commodities such as lemon, ginger, garlic, ‘thankuni’ (Indian pennywort) leaves etc. have remedial property to get rid of corona. Such mass-buying resulted in the complete absence of some of those items in the local markets. In addition, some health items such as sanitizer, savlon, sprit, Dettol, toilet papers, facial tissue, alcohol, chlorine powder (bleaching powder), paracetamol and other histamine like drugs were not easily obtainable items in the shops.
Treatment with Ginger, garlic and lemon has been suggested by some individuals to avoid COVID-19 infection
In the hardships of the situation following the above mentioned rumors, some consumers even bought their consumable commodities for three months thinking of the consequence of the epidemic corona. They also thought that those commodities will disappear from the market, if corona finally hits Bangladesh and they found logics to buy those in massive scale.
However, after one week, the price of some the consumable commodities reduced – there were few customers, as the customers already purchased those before as their needs. In such list, the grocer items were on top lines.
But, the commodities such as hand sanitizer items, savlons and dattol were totally absent from the markets and due to this reason, individuals and some institutions started teaching how those items could be made at home. Some organizations prepared those in their laboratories themselves and distributed among the people free of costs, although those were in limited scales.
The much circulation in the mass media was also noticed giving instruction or advice to the people to use normal soap for washing hands for 20 seconds at half an hour interval or at least five times a day. It was also told to use any detergent for other cleanliness. This was actually a good advice which was much affordable to all sect or classes of people.
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